Posts tagged: Creativity

I was pretty proud of myself after learning how to make chicken scallopini.

I had boldly decided that I wanted to learn how to do more in the kitchen than reheat frozen waffles and so when I came across a recipe that seemed like a challenge I decided to go for it. (It certainly helped that the recipe happened to involve delicious things like pasta, white wine, and lightly breaded chicken.)

I wrote out the instructions on a notecard and followed them closely, relishing the recipe’s technical steps like wrapping a chicken breast in parchment paper, flattening it with a wine bottle, and then dredging it in flour. As I watched the white wine sauce reduce in a hot pan, my mouth started watering with anticipation. The dish was an unequivocal hit, even earning praise from my neighbor who refuses to eat anything that isn’t deep fried.

This post comes from IDEO U, an online school where anyone can learn to solve anything creatively.

What if you approached your own life challenges with a sense of curiosity and creativity? What if there were tools and mindsets that could help you design and build the life you want?

Applying the design process to your life can help you determine what you want and how to create it. It provides a way to test out (or prototype) small immediate changes in your life rather than make drastic changes, get stuck at the starting line, or get paralyzed by the enormity of it all.

After years of seeing college students struggle to determine which direction to take their lives and hearing an outcry for open dialogue about this challenge, professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans crafted a course at Stanford d.school on Designing Your Life. The course continues read more

For our four Tip Card Decks (available here), we condensed, distilled, unpacked, and repacked our very best tips into potent bite-size actions designed to get you unstuck. But it’s not a random deal of the cards.

The decks include Stuck Moment cards to help you zero in on the right tips — and that’s what makes them so powerful. When targeted correctly, your efforts don’t have to be big or showy or imported from Mars. They just need to trip the right wires in your head and heart.

But don’t take our word for it.

Read through four of our favorite tips, one from each deck, based on common Stuck Moments. If you like what you see, buy a deck or two. At $25, they make a thoughtful gift for someone (or yourself).

When we’re really, really good at something — whether whipping up a new blog post or finding our way around town — our thinking can start to get a little stale. We slip into autopilot, our creative drive lost, instead of tuning into our senses and staying open to fresh connections.

One way to shake yourself out of a creative rut is to toss out the map. For example, an app called Drift aims to reintroduce delight and serendipity into your familiar environment through a random series of creative prompts. You’ll be taken on a walking tour/scavenger hunt of where you live, pausing to fully notice and absorb what’s around you. The cues helps trigger your sense of play and adventure, so that you can see, feel, and think in fresh read more

Brainstorming as a group can be fun and energizing, but the results aren’t always better than when individuals ideate on their own. To get the most out of your next brainstorming session, the trick is for everyone to first spend time alone thinking up solutions — and then to get together to pool, discuss, debate, and refine. This format allows you to build on great ideas to make them even better. And don’t be afraid to fully engage with each other. According to research by Dr. Charlan Nemeth at the University of California at Berkeley, “Debate and criticism do not inhibit ideas but, rather, stimulate them.”

When graphic designer Tom Balchin gets creatively stuck, instead of looking for a solution, he digs into the problem. Is there a tension that is getting in the way of a solution? More often than not, there is, he says. Emotional investment versus financial cost, for instance. Or personalization versus broad reach. Once the opposing forces are known, he finds it much easier to reassess what he needs to do.

When designer Paula Scher hits a creative block, she does two kinds of activities. To get outside of herself so she can think in a different way, she might go to the movies, read a junky magazine, or take a long walk. To feel good about herself, she will indulge in a small self-improvement project like cleaning her closet, getting a haircut, or buying a new pair of shoes. She says, “When I feel good about myself I am ready for the next thing.”

As we grow older, the world of horsing around and letting our imaginations run wild slowly fades to sepia tone. We may feel nostalgic for those carefree days, but the demands of the adult world make play a tiny footnote to our schedules. In School of Life 101, we learn that a serious mind is prized over a playful one. That, when in doubt, it’s better to button up and sit still than to let loose. That focus — not free-styling — is what gets us into the flow.

But actually, play is all about flow. It puts our brains and bodies into a joyful place where things just click. And that’s when magic can happen. This playful state of being can have amazing benefits in life and work:

• Play fires the brain, revealing patterns and creating connections that drive creativity, innovation, and problem-solving.

When a problem refuses to be solved, it might be time to make yourself something to eat. Cooking is both a routine and creative process. You lean on skills you already have, stroking your competence. And you stretch those muscles with a new recipe or technique that causes your brain to search for patterns and connections. Such a tasty way to your next aha moment.